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Mr. Fitzpatrick: I said that claims that I manipulated the meeting were quoted by Conservative Members. That is not my recollection of the conference, and it is not the recollection of many who were there.
The results of the consultative conference were discussed by the executive of the Greater London Labour party, which wholly supported the way forward being proposed by the Government--that is, an elected mayor balanced by an elected assembly. I repeat that the number of Labour submissions in opposition to the proposals was
only 16 out of the thousands of submissions by councillors, the hundreds of submissions by Labour party branches and the 74 submissions from constituencies. In those terms, 16 is a minuscule number. Clearly, there is overwhelming support within the Greater London Labour party for the proposals.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) said, a directly elected mayor and a directly elected assembly are what we promised at the general election. Londoners obviously support that, as demonstrated by our success within the region. They can demonstrate that support again next May, by voting yes overwhelmingly in the referendum.
I now repeat the suggestion that I made in the closing stages of the Second Reading debate on 10 November. I suggest that once we have agreed that we shall have an elected mayor and an elected assembly, we shall need to look for a home for both. I suggest that for several reasons, east London would be wholly appropriate.
First, it is clear to anyone living in the capital that the centre of gravity has been moving east for years; the docklands area demonstrates that. Secondly, the Thames gateway is the gateway to Europe, and placing the centre of local government there would acknowledge that fact. Thirdly, it would be a gesture to the excluded communities of east London for them to be the home for new London politics. It would also symbolise the regeneration of the area, not only after the closure of the docks, but after the South Quay bombing. For too long, the east end has been the home of poverty, deprivation and unemployment, as demonstrated by the flirtation with the far right.
Mr. Pickles:
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the east end would be a good place to locate the building for the mayor and the assembly. Does he agree with the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) about the powers that would be exercised by the strategic authority in that building? Would he fight tooth and nail to ensure that no powers were taken away from the boroughs?
Mr. Fitzpatrick:
I have never been a local authority representative, but I am sure that local authorities will be more than able to defend their corner when the new strategic authority is created.
Siting the home of the new centre of regional government in the east end would be wholly consistent with the Government's objective of demonstrating that this is a new beginning. The Prime Minister clearly demonstrated that, by siting the Anglo-French conference at Canary Wharf. This is about new Britain, about new London and about a new start for our capital city. I shall submit my proposal to the Minister in due course. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. A number of Back Benchers still wish to speak. As hon. Members know, there will be winding-up speeches, so brief speeches, such as the one by the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Mr. Fitzpatrick), would be helpful.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood):
Ministers must be a little wistful about imposing a gagging order on their Back-Bench colleagues in Committee. We might not otherwise have had such prolix contributions on Third Reading. Ministers would normally expect by now to be home in their Departments for tea. They must be getting a little sad as they realise that tea trolley time has gone and that the bone china cups have rattled down the corridor while the debate here has dragged on.
The contributions from Labour Members today have been most revealing. First, the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) spoke of dynamic tension between the mayor and the elected assembly as if that was meritorious. The Minister argued most forcefully and convincingly that the governance of London needed leadership from the mayor. If, however, the mayor is locked in almost permanent conflict with an argumentative and difficult assembly, the proposal does not bode well for Londoners.
Secondly, we had the contribution by the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). He stated clearly that he thought that local authorities, such as his own in Harrow, would fight tooth and nail to preserve every inch of their power against the overweening ambitions--that was the implication of what he said--of the assembly. Once the assembly is elected--this is the force of the argument put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler)--those ambitions will grow. If the assembly members want to demonstrate their effectiveness, they will arrogate to themselves more and more power. That bodes ill for the governance of London and makes any objective commentator wonder whether proposals of such far-reaching consequence should be considered for such a short period by the people of London.
The White Paper is to be produced on 23 March 1998 or thereabouts. The date of the referendum will be 7 May. Easter will come in the middle of April, and there will be the school holidays, the May day bank holiday and the Easter recess. There will be very little opportunity for even this House to give the White Paper proper consideration, let alone the people of London, who will be up to their ears in the arguments about the governance of their own boroughs, which is more important for them than the governance of London.
Before we grant the total power that the Bill will entail, there could well be a change of heart by the Government--perhaps between the publication of the White Paper and the enactment of the Bill that will give force to the proposals. The constituency branches of the Labour party seem very worried that the traditional system of a leader being chosen from their number will be done away with. That is a potential source of pressure on the Government, which could lead to changes between the publication of the White Paper and the Bill.
We would be most unwise to give a carte blanche single question to the electorate, without a paramount and totally plain explanation from the Government of how the assembly will be elected, how the mayor will be elected and how those two separate elections will be funded. That is particularly important for the election of the mayor. There is a real risk that his election could be bankrolled by a company. It is not beyond our imagination to see the immense potential for the corruption of the electoral
process if strict safeguards on expenditure are not written into the White Paper and, more important, enacted in the legislation.
That is why the Opposition are right to insist on two questions. Having two questions would not invalidate the Government's proposals for an authority with the twin components of mayor and assembly; it would provide a means of validating the merits of each. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and the Minister, in a telling conclusion to his speech, said that they could envisage the assembly working perfectly well without a directly elected mayor, as a normal democratic institution, drawing its leader from its ranks.
If democracy in London is to be better served rather than prejudiced by the proposals, it is crucial that the boroughs have their voice. I apologise for being a little parochial, but the following example makes my point. Mr. Evans, the local MEP for my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), has just said that he is wholly against the fifth terminal for Heathrow and against the abolition of duty free sales at the airport and on airlines for European flights. Those proposals would gravely damage employment in Hillingdon. Without a directly elected representative--or an indirectly elected one in the form of the leader of a borough, as Conservative Front-Bench Members have argued--particular local interests will not be served on the assembly.
Transport is a potential area of competence for the assembly and the mayor. Air transport and the related infrastructure of rail connections, high-speed links and roads are crucial issues for my borough. Our concerns must be effectively articulated in the new assembly. The chances are that they will not be unless we have a representative for Hillingdon. That representative would also have to stand up for the green belt, because there must be a balance between the transport imperatives that are crucial for the economy of our borough, for west London and for the country, and the environmental interests of local residents, which are already imperilled by the ever-increasing demands of Labour authorities to build on open space, and occasionally on green-belt land, as we have seen in Hillingdon.
Ms Joan Ryan (Enfield, North):
I speak not as the Lobby fodder that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) referred to, but as the Member of Parliament for a London constituency--Enfield, North. I speak on behalf of the people of Enfield, North, who voted for our manifesto in considerable numbers. I have consulted them formally and informally about the proposals on many occasions. I am pleased to report that the proposals for a directly elected mayor and assembly in one package have overwhelming support.
There are good reasons to rehearse the arguments put on Second Reading. The Conservatives seem to oppose a democratic voice for London. When they abolished the Greater London council, they made no attempt to reform
it. There have been no proposals in the 11 years since then to redress the balance and do something about the democratic deficit in London. They are aware of the tremendous support for the Government's proposals in London, so they find themselves in difficulty. Instead of opposing the proposals wholesale, which I believe to be their true position, they argue about the assembly.
Londoners want and need a democratic voice for the capital, elected by the people to speak up for us and battle on our behalf for inward investment for jobs and for public money to tackle the division between rich and poor, to defend and promote the interests of Londoners and to ensure that London remains a world-class capital.
The capital currently has no voice. We suffer from a lack of co-ordination, which is more than evident on transport issues. We suffer from a lack of strategic planning, which is evident in the King's Cross development. We suffer from a lack of openness, accountability and democracy, which is evident in the situation with the Metropolitan police. The Labour Government inherited a mess from the previous Conservative Government. We have had 18 years of experiments and change, including complete disasters such as the poll tax. That has weakened local services and demoralised many local councillors.
No wonder talented people shy away from standing for election to their local council. No wonder 80 per cent. of councillors are over 45, one third are retired and only one in four are women. No wonder only 31 per cent. of the electorate bothered to vote in the 1994 local elections. We need democratic renewal. We want change for local government that will bring better public services and stronger local democracy.
It is not healthy for everything to be run from Whitehall. That places too much power in the hands of too few people. The new millennium demands a new approach. Nowhere is that more true than in London. The capital has 12 per cent. of the United Kingdom's population. Its gross domestic product is greater than that of Singapore, Thailand or Hong Kong. Its economy is bigger than those of many European countries, including Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Luxembourg. It accounts for 19 per cent. of United Kingdom GDP. More than 40 per cent. of the United Kingdom's businesses and financial services are located in London. In the rest of the UK, 4.1 million workers depend on producing goods and services that are sold in London.
Of course, with all that, we have our problems. Of the country's most deprived wards, 14 per cent. are in London. At the local elections for London in 1994, more than one in six people in London were in receipt of income support. London has the highest level of serious crime and one of the highest rates of reported drug misuse in the country. Infant mortality rates in deprived inner London are twice as high as those in some outer boroughs. We need a Greater London authority and an elected mayor. This is an idea whose time has come.
6.4 pm
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